Took in 2 feral/stray kittens, now I am allergic???

mikeykitteh

mikeykitteh

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Hello!

I have had cats my entire life, often times I had more than 1. When I was a kid, I had allergic reactions to kittens but this disappeared as I got older. Well, I now have a 2 year old cat and my neighbor and I trapped some feral kittens and their mama cat. We are in the process of socializing them. I took in 2 of the kittens, who have now been fixed and received their first set of shots. They are doing pretty good! However, the first night they were here, I suddenely had a horrible allergic reaction to them. My faced swelled up, my eyes swelled up as well. I had problems breathing, and I was covered in hives. I almost went to the ER! I took some Zyrtec and washed off.

I bathed both cats in hypoallergenic shampoo (they are pretty fluffy). Prior to me bathing them, they smelled like cat urine and litter (probably from the crate they were in). Problem is, I need to be in there interacting with them in order to continue socializing them!

Has anyone ever had this happen? I am 39 years old. Like I said, I have had cats my entire life. I even have one now. Never been a problem. I understand some cats have a slightly different antigen, but my reaction was so severe that I wonder if I was reacting to something on the kittens, rather than the kittens themselves. We rescued them from under a deck a few weeks ago.

Has any ever experienced this?
 
StefanZ

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MikeyKitteh said:
 
Hello!

I have had cats my entire life, often times I had more than 1. When I was a kid, I had allergic reactions to kittens but this disappeared as I got older. Well, I now have a 2 year old cat and my neighbor and I trapped some feral kittens and their mama cat. We are in the process of socializing them. I took in 2 of the kittens, who have now been fixed and received their first set of shots. They are doing pretty good! However, the first night they were here, I suddenely had a horrible allergic reaction to them. My faced swelled up, my eyes swelled up as well. I had problems breathing, and I was covered in hives. I almost went to the ER! I took some Zyrtec and washed off.

I bathed both cats in hypoallergenic shampoo (they are pretty fluffy). Prior to me bathing them, they smelled like cat urine and litter (probably from the crate they were in). Problem is, I need to be in there interacting with them in order to continue socializing them!

Has anyone ever had this happen? I am 39 years old. Like I said, I have had cats my entire life. I even have one now. Never been a problem. I understand some cats have a slightly different antigen, but my reaction was so severe that I wonder if I was reacting to something on the kittens, rather than the kittens themselves. We rescued them from under a deck a few weeks ago.

Has any ever experienced this?
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I will write some a little later!   Im not sure what exactly Zyrtec is - I will google, but can you get anti-allergic steroid medicines [CORTISONE]  to have ready, just if?
 
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StefanZ

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The first question, could there be urine from a fertile cat?   As fertile, and small kittens, may be more allergy-dangerous than the neutered ones...

This is really what comes to my mind.

Do you have somebody whom can help you change the litter?  Brush off them every second day??   Brushing them off often helps much.  I remember I saw the Persians give as a breed good for allergics.   At first I was surprised, I had never seen the persians as especielly suitable.  But the key is probably, a typical home persian is groomed regularly, its fur in perfect condition, way above average...

The learning frome here?  Do keep their fur in perfect condition.  Healthy, but also well brushed often,  and bathed or brushed off with a semi-wet towel..

As they seem to be handleable, you could after all bathe them in this hypo-allergenic shampoo, an effective method is to let them swim / bathe them, let them get a shower, say once a  a week or a tenday.  Its enough with common water, so its not as drying off the skin as bathing with shampoo...

Be sure you have good ventilation.  Open windows, or even better, an air cleaner, with hepa filter...

fight off any dust.  Sweep off with a vet towel, or use an vacuum cleaner with hepa filter...

Do not smoke, exercise, take promeads in fresh air.

Clean off your hands after cuddling them...  etc...

Some tips and ideas.   Im sure you know most of them, but still, some may be new....

Please continue to report and come back with questions and reactions.
 
evamilly

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MikeyKitteh said:
Hello!
I have had cats my entire life, often times I had more than 1. When I was a kid, I had allergic reactions to kittens but this disappeared as I got older. Well, I now have a 2 year old cat and my neighbor and I trapped some feral kittens and their mama cat. We are in the process of socializing them. I took in 2 of the kittens, who have now been fixed and received their first set of shots. They are doing pretty good! However, the first night they were here, I suddenely had a horrible allergic reaction to them. My faced swelled up, my eyes swelled up as well. I had problems breathing, and I was covered in hives. I almost went to the ER! I took some Zyrtec and washed off.


If your face and eyes were swelling up and you had difficulty breathing you should have gone to the ER at the time anaphylaxis can be fatal swelling can escalate very quickly. I would let you GP know today as they can issue you with the Meds you require and an EpiPen (epinephrine) in case it happens again. If you have been handling the cats again without this happening- the reaction may not have been to them. However it is possible to get allergic reactions to things you have previously been exposed to without problems! Your GP will be able to help you establish what caused the
Click to expand...
 
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Hmmm....Maybe, as you said, you're having a reaction to something they've gotten into rather than the kitties themselves? I would think that such a severe reaction wouldn't be expected if you have no reaction to cats normally. I would suggest having your neighbour help you out and do a trial run of handling just one of them for a short time. If you have a reaction, you might just need some other support to take over for you. If you don't react, interact with the others one at a time. Maybe your reaction was from just one of the kitties.
 
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mikeykitteh

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Thank you, everyone!

Zyrtec is an antihistamine. It helped a little but my face was still puffy. It is taking a few days for all of the swelling to go down. My ENT said that the kittens likely had some pollen on them from when they were living under the deck in my other neighbor’s backyard. I am allergic to pollen and all of the other stuff in the air this time of year. It also could have been the clay litter debris they had on them from the crate. Then again, I may be allergic. I have to make an appointment for allergy testing.

My neighbor who has the other kittens won’t take these back because she has 8 cats right now. To be honest, I am so attached to these guys that I cried like baby last night when I thought about returning them. Ugh. My eyes are swollen today just from the crying!

It seems that after I gave them both a really good bath, I am not having such scary reactions. I scrubbed them really good using Whisker City’s hypoallergenic shampoo.

StefanZ-Thank you for your suggestions! And yes, these two kittens were in a crate with 2 unneutered male kittens. The mama cat was there also, and she is apparently really fertile (we did just get her fixed though, but these kittens may have had some urine from before we got mama fixed).  I will definitely be brushing them and bathing them to keep things under control. My horrible reaction occurred right after snuggling one of them, and getting a really huge wiff of cat urine. My reaction happened right after that.

Evafamily-I probably should have gone to the ER. My face swelled up but it wasn’t as bad as what I have seen in others. I was wondering at first why my face looked like I had gained a good 15 pounds! Then, my eyes swelled up. It was so scary.

Sassfraster-Unfortunatley, I do not have anyone who can regularly take care of them. I am hoping the reaction will not re-occur. Today has been a really good day, and I have been handling them without anything major happening. I was so heart broken when this first happened! I am already so attached to them!
 
misterwhiskers

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I have family members allergic to cats, so I've done some reading on this. Unfortunately, there is some proof that cat allergies do worsen if there is time between cats, even years. As for having hives, that's just not a good sign. [emoji]128532[/emoji] This can escalate quickly. Yes, you can try antihistamines, keep and epi pen, and wash your cat (you can buy Allerpet C), but there's no guarantee you won't end up with an anaphylactic shock at some point.

I love cats, but I have family members with these kinds of allergies, and hives are just a bad sign.

The good news here is there is a vaccination for cat allergies I believe undergoing experimentation as I write. The bad news is, I don't believe it would be available for a few years.

I wish I had better news for you. I suppose the Allerpet C and Zyrtec etc are all worth a try, but you likely will always need an epi pen and Benedryl around, and might always have a degree of allergies. Like I said, the hives are worrisome.
 
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I'm glad your terrible reaction might be to pollen and not to the kittens (although I am sorry you had such a reaction at all). I hope it all works out for you and them!
 
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mikeykitteh

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Thanks. It is just so odd that my other adult cat gives me no allergy symptoms at all. I have had him for 2 years, and before I had him I had two cats for 13 years. There was no time gap between cats because as soon as the others passed away, I adopted a rescue the same day. I have not been without multiple cats for 17 years. It is just so odd that it is only these 2 kittens and not other cats.

I am so paranoid of it happening again. I am having anxiety attacks. It was so scary. My allergy testing is a week from today. I hope I am allergic to something on the cats and not the cats themselves. I would be devastated.
 
LotsOfFur

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Just as an added precaution you could use unsented baby wipes and wipe the kittens down. Hopefully it was ,as you stated, a reaction to what was on them i.e pollen. Since allergies to animals has to do with their dander & saliva from grooming themselves, wiping them with the unsented baby wipes has been helpful to some. Just a thought [emoji]128512[/emoji]
 
misterwhiskers

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Oh!! Given the updated info, it does sound likely to be at least a good chance it wasn't a cat allergy!! I wonder if they used pine litter at the other place? Some people are very allergic to pine, too. Just a thought.
 
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